I don’t usually do this, but I love what this guy is doing, so I’m gonna tell you about it!
If you’re a parent or teacher, you should sign up for Jesse’s blog.
I’ve been following Jesse for a long time. He posts blogs every once in a while when he has a strong opinion about a current event in education. I love his passion and wanted to share his work with you so you can learn from him!
I do not know Jesse and he does not know I’m posting this on my blog. I’m doing this purely because I appreciate the way he contributes to helping our kids.
Here’s a bit more about Jesse:
Jesse Hagopian teaches Ethnic Studies and is the co-adviser to the Black Student Union at Garfield High School–the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test in 2013. Jesse is an editor for the social justice periodical Rethinking Schools is the co-editor for the forthcoming book, Teaching for Black Lives, and is the editor of the book, More Than a Score: The New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing. He is founding member of Social Equity Educators (SEE), a recipient of the 2012 Abe Keller Foundation award for “excellence and innovation in peace education,” and won the 2013 “Secondary School Teacher of the Year” award and the Special Achievement “Courageous Leadership” award from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. In 2015, Jesse received the Seattle/King County NAACP Service Award, was named as an Education Fellow to The Progressive magazine, as well as a “Cultural Freedom Fellow” for the Lannan Foundation for his nationally recognized work in promoting critical thinking and opposing high-stakes testing.
Thanks for how you show up Jesse.
Very best,
Seth
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Here’s another vlog for teachers, based on an email I received form a High School Special Education Teacher named Cynthia.
Sometimes it’s isolating when you’re an outside-the-box teacher with alternative views. It can feel unsupportive.
Sometimes it’s lonely when you want to use non-traditional or unconventional methods of teaching and reaching kids.
This video explores these issues and offers insights, including how to do a temp check with students to reaffirm that you’re on the right track. Thank you, teachers, for every bit of time, energy, care, and concern you give our students. We need you!
Here’s to a great school year — Seth
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To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you — Seth
Reading the transcript? Great! We’re currently uploading hundreds of transcripts so you can read them asap, but they are NOT all edited yet. This is a big process. If you notice anything wrong and want to help us, feel free to click this Google Form to share it. Thanks so much for pitching in! – Seth
Video transcript:
Hey, what’s up? Everybody? This is tough. Fro.com. I hope you are having a great day coming to from another pintastic wall in Santa Monica. This is a email from Cynthia Cynthia said I am a special education teacher. I’m excited to have your resources to backup my suggestion for helping my high school students address their organization. Cynthia need me to help back up her idea because oftentimes when teachers are doing non-traditional approaches, they are not getting the support or acceptance that they need because oftentimes schools are very in the box and they often times have a lot of Staff who are we’re not pushing the needle we’re not doing things differently so they can often feel different. So anyhow, she think she appreciate that this helps it back up. As you know, traditional approaches. Don’t work for some students. Obviously, that’s why I do what I do. I wouldn’t be in. I wish I didn’t have a job because schools would have got these need but I am in business because traditional approaches don’t work for some students and I’m left alone when advocating for a different approach. So she feels lonely as a teacher when she’s trying to say. Hey, let’s do this. This isn’t working for the kids. Let’s try something different. I relate to that because I went through that a lot your resources will give me an ally in another source of evidence to support my students. My biggest challenge is working alone with little time and resources to support my awesome out-of-the-box Learners parents administrators and even students have often given up by the time they reach me in high school those who have not given up often resist efforts to try something different because often they’re very Jaded by that point. They’re very exhausted. They’ve been through the game so much that they know that they get beaten down. They put all this effort in nobody notices that we’re not enough people notice it and they really notice schools and teachers. Administrators really notice the things that aren’t going right in there so much focus on that these kids really they were often do resistant give up and they’re they’re very beaten down by the time by High School by the time thanks for your support. She says that she says that her biggest challenge is working alone. How do you overcome that feeling well, I think it’s very challenging. I went through the same thing and I think that has a teacher one of the most important things you need to do is listen to your gut. You are the professional. Of course, the the the career of the teaching career has been D professionalize you are not treated like a professional or you’re just not valued for being a human being people don’t understand that they don’t like you open the box and put you in a closet overnight open the box in the morning you pop out in your teacher that you actually go home and you have a life and you have a family and you take your work home with you at night on weekends that you’re working your butt off during the summer and over break through your student on people don’t see that and people often think of a teacher as they use the word d professionalized. They’re not seeing you then. They have no idea how much talent teachers have administrators parents even other teachers a even yourself lot of teachers. Don’t understand how awesome they are. So part of my advice is really listen to your gut and you are the professional, you know, your kids, you know your students. Okay, you know them differently than the parents do but you know them and you haven’t had the experience in the hours in the passion you do the research about kids about the brain and everything, you know what they need. So trust your gut if you have a hint that something will work for a kid. Try it out and do it anyway and it if it’s feeling lonely, I guess, you know get on Facebook group for Renegade teachers. I interact with me on my blog start your own blog start your own meet up some meetup.com get to know maybe you can get to know a core little group of people who are other disruptors who who you can really connect with. I’m not in a complaining way. I’m not talking about that like the complaint that you here in the teachers lounge or everybody is just whining I’m talking about like people who you’re having real dialogue with that healing for you and that’s positive in that Saloon. Turn based in focused on helping you support each others to do what you’re doing. We need you call Trini juice Society need you. We need you teacher so bad so bad and it’s often hard for outside the box teachers to to feel a sense of belonging even in your own School situation, but finding those few poor people in again, not in the complaining way, but in a supportive way, I’m connecting with people that can help you to feel less alone. That’s part of what you want to do. So I guess my advice is listen to your gut and try to find some other like-minded people that you can really connect with teaching is hard. You have a lot of paperwork to do a lot of time and energy a lot of emotional in the energy that suspended in it and these kids need you. So I guess my last piece of advice would be to ask Your kids your students what they need. So so here is a really cool tip that I use with a lot of student. So it’s called the temperature check. So I’ll talk to a student and I’ll say hey, what’s up? What’s your temperature with Miss Smith? What’s your temperature with math today? What’s your temperature with organization? What’s your temperature with your locker? What’s your temperature with with your social life with your friends and stuff and then they give an answer 1 through 10 so that they they say seven I say pull your social life is a 7y some follow-up is always why and then they say blah blah blah nice a cool and depending on what they say. I say then say what would make it an 8? So what would make your social life go from a 7 to an eight? It’s very manageable when they think from point to point where I say, you know if their organization is a v I might they will what would make it a sexy, you know, if I say, how is your day and they say it’s a one I might say what would make it to these sort of open-ended questions. Give me a lot of feedback with what I can do for the student. And then you’re sort of even though you’re not getting maybe support from other teachers administrators and people who don’t really get what you’re doing. You’re at least getting clear from The Source exactly what they really do need and you can refer them to us. Yeah. I’m on the right track. This is what this kid needs. It may not fit in the box of the system. It may not fit into what you know, the data that the system is asking me to collect and all the the red tape that the system is asked me to do in all the Hoops. I’m being asked to jump through the teacher but I know that I’m doing what is right for this kid in their future and I can rest tonight knowing that I’m doing that even though I’m getting pushed back or not getting congruence with other people in the system. So you got to remember that the system is old it’s outdated and this system or a business and their investors invest in the business and the result was supposed to be having a great future investors will not invest in it because the results are often not working kids are not ready to launch After High School in the fact that kids are not ready to launch means that education is not working at the whole point of edge. Stop get the laundry great future. So they need those tools we ever launched but we are so myopic and we’re so stuck in our ways and they’re they’re people who obviously are profiting off of Education testing companies textbook companies. These are big big big big big big business for example piercings in a billion dollar company. That’s one testing company. They don’t want you to want the status quo 2 Chainz. They don’t want you rocking the boat. They want people who are complaining or not going to question you were going to do the things that they’re told the way they’re told that your job is to serve kids not the de who deserve Pearson or other companies like this. So it’s definitely challenging for teachers to figure out how to navigate this whole world. Anyhow, I hope that helps you I appreciate you I appreciate teachers. We need you so bad. Please keep doing what you’re doing. Please keep your finding your gifts and your talents in your skills and your professionalism and your heart because teaching is in Art is not a sign that is not regurgitation of curriculum that’s been written by somebody somewhere that you never even meet. It is an art you are the artist you get to design curriculum to serve your students in design learning experience. That’s that’s going to serve them. So good luck to you and thank you for doing what you do. Take care.
I created this article and PDF – Student Systems Assessment for teachers and parents, to accompany the podcast interview of me by Jennifer Gonzalez. We dove deep into some great tips that will help you help your struggling students. Jennifer’s education podcast is called The Cult of Pedagogy and it’s perfect for any teacher or parent who cares about diving deeper into the issues that face education. Check out her podcast, subscribe and give it a review. You’ll love it. This document will help break down the podcast concepts so you can apply them more effectively to help your child.
Download the free PDF Assessment here. Print it and try it! It’ll help.
Introduction
When it comes to building the systems needed to manage school, most students with strong Executive Function somehow just “figure it out”. On the other hand, struggling students don’t figure it out on their own because they aren’t wired that way. They are rarely given the guidance needed to build effective systems for managing school and life. Unfortunately, the students who struggle are often misunderstood and tend to get three negative messages:
“You’re lazy”
“You must not care enough about school”
“You just need try hard harder”
These kids often internalize these well-intended but shortsighted messages, and end up feeling feeling like they are stupid, lazy or failures. They eventually become disillusioned by school and begin to give up since their efforts rarely seem to be good enough.For some reason, our schools do not teach how to learn, how to execute, or how to “do” school. This document breaks down some of the most important systems that need to be taught directly in order for these kids to learn to successfully navigate school.
One of the key concepts I teach is called Franken-study. I use this term to refer to how there is no “one size fits all” system, and that we serve our students best by guiding them to build and refine their own reliable systems. It’s not a quick fix or a magic bullet, it requires that parents and teachers compassionately and patiently spend a great deal of energy working with these students over a long period of time. Therefore, as you read through this document, don’t try to do everything exactly as I suggest. Instead, use these concepts as a starting point for reliable systems that work well for most, not all, of these students. In other words, your child is going through a process of building her own uniquely tailored Franken-study habits and systems.
Teachers
A special thank you to teachers. We NEED you! Keep plugging away, helping our kids, and challenging the educational status quo to improve education.
The Problems
Before we look at systems, let’s look at some of the underlying problems.
“Outside-the-box learners” who struggle in school: What does that mean exactly?
The most important thing to know is that “Executive Function” challenges are the common characteristic of students who struggle. Regardless of “labels” (adhd, aspergers, dyslexic, TBI, etc), they all struggle with various aspects of EF. Therefore, when you address EF properly, you’re on the right track. Sadly, teachers are rarely given adequate training in EF. [See my “EF in Depth” article].
It’s critical to note that it’s also an emotional issue. These kids are often avoidant and resistant to things that feel emotionally “unsafe” for them. Therefore, the more an adult helps students to regulate emotion, the safer the students will feel, and the better they will be able to learn and develop their EF. Again, teachers are rarely given adequate training in emotional regulation, somatic approaches, coregulation, etc..
Misunderstandings – Three myths adults often believe that get in the way of helping these kids.
This kid is lazy
Isn’t trying hard enough
Doesn’t care about school
Lack systems – Finally, these kids don’t have “systems” to manage school and life. Your stereotypical “good students” are often “linear thinkers” who learn how to “do school” almost through osmosis. As far as school is concerned, they “get it”, they understand how to “execute” school related tasks. They are “on top of their schoolwork.” However, kids who struggle need a great deal of direct guidance in developing systems that match their needs, yet we don’t teach this!
A Bit About The Systems Students Need
Paper Management System – Systems for organization of papers. Usually binders, accordions or folders. Teachers and parents often get this wrong by insisting on binders, which are usually the worst thing for these kids. They require too much attention to detail. Instead, try simple, clearly labeled, color coded folders with matching notebooks.
Backpack management system – How to keep backpack under control? There should be a “home” for everything, and it needs to be overhauled regularly. Note- Many students do not use their lockers at all and put EVERYTHING into their backpack. Although this may seem silly, it’s actually not a bad compensatory strategy for many kids, because they know that at least they have it somewhere in there. One of the biggest problems is that as the school year goes on, it gets fuller and more difficult to manage because it becomes so full.
Planner system – I recommend minimalist monthly planners (not weekly). These need to be updated daily. Planning is a huge skill – see my Toolkit Videos for in-depth ideas.
Grade Monitoring system – Students should have their online grade programs bookmarked for easy reference. They sould be looking at grades 2-3 times a week. THey should NOT rely on just the “grade” but should be looking at the detailed list of assignments. Print these for easy reference.
Self advocacy – Self advocacy muscles must be utilized in order to grow. Kids often say they will talk to the teacher but don’t. Emailing their teachers helps with accountability. But they have to go in person to ask for help. It’s really hard at first, but once they try this a few times, it becomes one of the easiest systems to apply.
SSS – Students need a Sacred Study Space at home but they are rarely guided through the process of creating it. It needs to be optimized for focus and distractions need to be eliminated.
Weekly Overhaul – Maintainers vs. overhaulers. This overhaul is absolutely critical. If you don’t help your students learn to do consistent overhauls, none of this matters. It’s absolutely, positively not enough to just show them what to do, we have to help them buildhabits, and there is no quick fix or magic bullet. It takes time, effort and compassionate patience.
Important: For more help on these systems, my free Student Success Toolkit is available when you subscribe to my blog. I send you a mini-course of fantastic, in-depth videos that walk you through the most important things you need in order to help a struggling student.
Content, Process, and Product
Parents and teachers, this video breaks down three extremely helpful concepts used to build curriculum – “Content, Process, and Product”. This will give you a useful filter to can use as you contemplate how well the curriculum meets the needs of your child.
Content – What we learn
Usually the curriculum.
Process – How we learn something
One model: AVK
Auditory
Visual
Kinesthetic
(This is just scratching the surface, there are many more ways to describe processing)
Product ideas – How we show our learning
Alternative assessments. Alternatives to tests and papers. Here are a handful of ideas:
Graphs and charts
Portfolio
Drawings, blueprints, maps
Videos
Audio recordings, songs, podcasts
Magazines, articles
Blogs
Games
Arts: drawings, paintings, performances
Newscast
Speech
Museum exhibit
Diorama
Model
Conics
Posters
Inventions
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✏️ EF101: Here’s my jumpstart course for parents and teachers.
🙏 Thanks! — Seth
Video transcript:Hey everybody, this is Seth with SethPerler.com and I’m making a video today for parents and teachers. This one is on content, process, and product. Excuse me for the lights here, this is not on my normal studio and this the pretty high-glare board, sorry about that. Anyhow, I want to talk about something called content, process, and product. The value in this for teachers is that it’s one of my favorite ways to break down the curriculum in my head and really understand if it’s serving kids, and how to maximize how it serves the kids. For parents, this is a great way for you to be able to evaluate curriculum and evaluate lessons and homework and put it through a filter in your head to see if there’s anything that can be tweaked in order to make modifications so that it better service to your child and they get more out of the educational learning experience.So, content, process, and product. In a nutshell what this means: content is what you learn, the process is how you learn, and the product is how you show what you learned. Content could be, for example, learning to multiply two-digit by two-digit numbers. That could be content. Content could be reading Of Mice and Men and learning about fiction, for example. Or, the content could be learning about space, or whatever. So content is what you’re learning. It could be anything that you can think of in a curriculum. It’s basically the objectives, the goals, or what they’re supposed to be learning.The process is how you learn it. Oh, by the way, content can be a small lesson, a mini-lesson that’s three minutes long, it could be an entire class, or it can be an entire unit. So content can be looked at in many different ways. Process is how you’re going to learn something. One great way to look at processes ABK: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. People who are more auditory, they can process information more by listening, these are kids often who memorize song lyrics like awesomely. That’s just one example of that, there are many ways that you can learn auditorily. Visually, these are kids who might be very visual-spatial and they might be awesome with legos, imagination, and seeing things in their head and coming up with these visual ideas and remembering visually what every detail looks like of something. Kinesthetic would be touch. A lot of times the ‘super athletes’ are very kinesthetic people. For example, dancers, people who use their bodies in their careers when they’re older, that’s kids that are very kinesthetic learners. So that’s just one way to look at process. Everybody uses all three, everybody uses auditory, visual, and kinesthetic but some people are really dominant in one or two of these areas, and really depend highly on them. I tend to be mostly visual, and then I said to be kinesthetic (as you can see I use my hands a lot and I move a lot when I am teaching, for example), and my auditory is the one that I use the least. But I use all three, everybody does. So that’s a little bit about how you can look at process, but what you want to know when a kid is sitting in a class is that they’re processing information. So are they processing their learning through experiential learning, through listening to a lecture (which is known to be pretty much the worst way to learn), through conversation, through dialogue, through video, through seeing displays, through seeing experiments and experiencing experiments? How are they processing the information? Are they reading? Are they listening? Are they watching? What’s going on to process the information, the content? How are they processing it and how are they learning it?And then the product has to do with how they show their learning. What tends to happen in American schools is that we have two main products: tests and papers. We’re very stuck, way in the box, with these blinders on. We seem to think that the only way that we can evaluate kids is through testing and writing papers. So we see, you know, you got your multiple-choice test, you got your short answer tests, you got your essay tests, all these different types of tests and quizzes and exams, and that is supposed to show that the child or the student, whatever, has processed the content and learned it. So the product is supposed to show that. When you are looking at content, a lot of teachers will use curriculum to build their content. They’re not really encouraged to get to create a creatively differentiated curriculum, but they’re encouraged to do what the curriculum tells them to do, to basically read the script. So the content can often be dictated, but if the content is really not engaging to your child, then what you want to do is try to figure out how can you make that content engaging? Now, teachers, you can do this in many ways. What I used to do when I was teaching was to create units based on figuring out what the ‘main things’ I wanted the kids to learn were, and then as far as when we did what I call ‘passion projects,’ they would have complete choice over what detail they chose to learn. So for example, let’s say that we were learning about the Roman Empire. Then I would have certain things that I wanted everybody to learn that were key concepts for whatever reason, and then when they did the passion project, i.e. if somebody was particularly interested in the armor that the Romans use, they can do a whole study on that and then in-depth study in that particular area. Or if they were interested in how they utilized water, they can completely study that.The product, again, is often a test, or a paper of some sort, and what you want to do is understand that there are many many many many ways to create a product. If you’re a parent advocating for your child and you know that they will learn the content but they’re not able to show it on the test effectively, but you know they’ve learned it or that they’re capable of learning it, then you want to advocate for them to be able to show their learning in different ways. You can really think outside the box. This video you’re watching right now is a product. My outline is three words long, the rest of it’s coming from my head. This is my guide right here, that’s my product. The blog post that goes with this could be a product. Creating a model could be a product. Singing could be a product, any form of art to be a product. If you are looking at the armor from the Roman era, for example, if the child created a drawing of that armor, or created the armor and taught about it to people, teaching that to the other students would be a product. Anything that shows the learning that has taken place can be the products. So there are hundreds of types of products that you could use. Anyhow, if you’re a teacher, this can help you to really look at ‘What am I teaching them and why?‘ Why am I teaching the content? Really question yourself and check yourself, and ask how valuable is this for the long-term for the child. There could be many reasons for this, but you want to have clarity about it. You don’t want to just follow the prescription of the curriculum and just regurgitated. You really want to think, ‘How does it matter? Why does this matter? And how can I enhance this?‘ When you’re looking at process, you want to look at all these different ways that kids process, the differentiation, and giving kids opportunities to process in many different ways. And then the product I think is the real key here. Give them as much choice as humanly possible in terms of how they’re going to show their learning. So, that’s all I got, a real quick one. I hope you have an awesome day and I’ll see you soon. Take care.
Regardless of whether or not a student is identified as gifted, Joseph Renzulli’s 3 ring model is an extraordinary framework for understanding learning.
In this video I explain the 3-ring conception and how it relates to executive function. It breaks down the 3 elements necessary in order to have “gifted behaviors.”
Here’s the model:
Joseph Renzulli 3 ring conception of giftednessLove my work and want to give? Click here!
To support me, please CLICK at the bottom to share. Click here to visit my official YouTube Channel & subscribe if you want! Thank you -Seth
Video transcript:
Everybody this is Seth with SethPerler.com. I hope you’re doing well. By the way, if you haven’t subscribed on YouTube, you can go ahead and click the red button below and click subscribe and you’ll get updated every time I post a new video. But welcome to this Sunday’s video, today I’m going to talk about Joseph Renzulli. He’s been in the field of gifted education for about 30-40 years, he’s been around a long time and he’s been a huge influence on me in the last 10 years. Huge influence. He’s really influenced the way that I think about working with kids. It doesn’t matter if the kids are gifted it or not gifted or labeled or not, it doesn’t matter. The paradigm I’m about to show you today, which is called a Renzulli’s three-ring conception of giftedness is really powerful in terms of helping you understand sort of the potential of kids and a potential pitfall. So I’ll go into that right now.So, Joseph Renzulli, he designed this three-ring conception, I believe in the 80s, and what he said is ‘when a human being or when a student or a child has three particular components mixed together, then they have, where the red is they’re displaying gifted behaviors. So he wouldn’t necessarily call a human being ‘gifted,’ I think that’s a sort of elitist tone that that seems to give off was distasteful to him and for many people, I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to be. So people can just play gifted behaviors when these three things are present there are gifted behaviors. So people can display gifted behaviors when these three things are present. So what are these three things?The first one is called above-average ability, so you can have an above-average ability in any number of ways. You can be intuitive and be above-average in your intuition. In your creativity, in math and science and writing and reading and visual-spatial thinking, in design. You name the area. You think of something that you’re talented in or that your child is talented in that’s above-average ability. So in order to have these behaviors, these gifted behaviors, you have to have an above-average ability in that certain area. You don’t have to have above-average ability in all areas by any means by the way. What are the areas that you have above-average ability in?Then you have to have creativity. You have to have this plus this. So when you have above-average ability in creativity you’re doing pretty good, you got a lot going on. Okay, so creativity. The ability to create, to design, to invest, to think of new solutions to problems. Now if you have these two, they don’t do much on their own. If you don’t do anything with them, and let’s say you use your ability to create a cure for cancer but you don’t tell anybody about it, you don’t publish it, you don’t do anything about it, it’s just in your mind. Or if you design a car that can get 1,000 miles to the gallon, but it’s just in your mind but you have the ability of creativity but you don’t do anything with it, it’s pretty valueless. So what do you need?You need what Renzulli calls task commitment. Now to me, the task commitment part, the follow-through, the being able to do something with these things. When you have all three of these then you have the gifted behaviors. This part is the part that my students struggle with because my students are struggling with executive function issues. That’s the ability of the brain to execute tasks like doing homework, cleaning your room, studying for a test; the ability to follow through with something. And when you have it, when you struggle with executive function, whether you’re failing out of classes, are almost failing, or you have ADD or dyslexia, Aspergers or anything, what ends up happening is that thing that struggling students struggle with is task commitment, is executive function. How do we execute tasks? Particularly, how do we execute a task that we don’t want to do? So if the student has to read a novel that they’re not into, how do we execute that task. If you have to study for a test or homework you don’t care, how do you execute that task because literally any career path that anybody takes anywhere in the world is going to involve doing things that you don’t want to do. You’re going to have to learn to have the resiliency to commit to the task and to execute tasks pieces of it that you don’t like, don’t enjoy, that are not pleasurable to you. It’s not all fun and games as they stay right. So how does the brain override the resistance to not do something so that they can actually follow-through and do it because it is the piece of the puzzle. Now, note, I’m not saying that all homework is valuable, so there are many things that schools have kids that truly are busy work and a waste of time for the student and cause more resentment and more discouragement then necessary. So I have to be taken into consideration but generally speaking, it doesn’t matter whatever we do, we are going to have to figure out what to do to override the resistance in the brain and use our executive function to execute tasks that we may not want to do.So this is Renzulli’s contribution, one of his contributions, and I just think it’s brilliant and a really helpful concept for us to think about because when you don’t have task commitment is that it threatens your long-term well-being. It is often no in the short-term of what they want, but it’s very difficult for them sometimes to see how these things might affect them long-term and what we want we want you to have an awesome life in the long term where you get to design and create the life you want. Not a life where you’re in some job that you hate, feeling like you don’t have choices in life. We want you to have choices and freedom. Okay, and that’s what it’s about. And that’s what education hopefully is able to deliver is like this ability to do anything you want in life. Craft your life, but task commitment, that’s the part where people get in trouble. So I hope this video is helpful to you if you like it, go ahead and subscribe on Youtube or visit my site and subscribe to my weekly vlogs. If you are appreciating my work, please share my blog with one person today and help me spread my work with people. Have a great weekend, take care.
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One of the college students I work with recently emailed me this:
“I need to produce an outline for a term paper this semester (completing the outline is an actual assignment, due Monday, April 7) and I would like to meet for your assistance on that. We do not have to worry about quickly moving past the outline, like we did on that last paper. I also plan to meet with the professor Monday and Wednesday mornings to discuss overall concerns with the paper beforehand and get a better idea on how to proceed.”
I need to produce an outline for a term paper
Let me set the stage
The kid is smart. Ten times as smart as I am. In fact, I never understand the content he’s studying- it’s beyond me. This paper was about industrial mobilization in America during WWI and the developing relationship between government and business. I don’t even know what that means, but I do know how to help struggling students organize ideas and write papers.
So here’s the problem with writing papers
Kids get great ideas and want to vomit them onto paper immediately. The paper goes in too may directions and becomes muddy/unfocused. Recovering from this mess requires a lot of backpedaling which is tedious, frustrating, discouraging, lowers motivation and diminishes interest in writing. There are a lot of details to manage when writing papers, and struggling students notoriously aren’t great with details.
In the case of this student, I had him get out all his ideas verbally. I asked questions, listened and typed a mess of notes as he spoke. Then I helped him reel it in. This was no easy task because the notes were all over the place. But since I listened from an outside perspective, I could hear his key points pretty clearly. These eventually became the thesis and section headings. We were able to make an extensive outline that flowed well. Now he can copy the outline, fill in the sections, revise and edit from there. Much better!
Things to consider
In order to better help students who struggle with writing papers, here are 4 things to consider:
1. Processing
Right brained kids process differently. They’re not concrete, linear, sequential, step by step, detail oriented, black & white thinkers, and they don’t follow rules/structures the same way. They’re abstract, big picture, global thinkers, creative, inventive, imaginative, intuitive, random, and their thoughts weave all over the place, jumping from from topic to topic.
Modern brain scans are mind blowing and are reshaping our understanding of learning
When writing papers they need clear structure and they need it chunked down into manageable steps. Writing a paper isn’t just writing a paper. It’s many details; thinking of ideas, discussing, daydreaming, planning, outlining, narrowing the topic, drafting, making a cover page, editing, revising, remembering to write and not wait until the last minute. Even turning it in is a step that can be hard. Contemplate the individual’s needs. I ask students what they need to in order to write the paper they want to write and really listen to the response. I’m always impressed by how well they can articulate it when the question is posed.
2. Planning
Planning (aka prewriting) is the most important part of the writing process and ironically it’s the most neglected part. Plan, plan, plan. Teach kids to outline, brainstorm, daydream, talk out ideas, make story boards, lists, webs. Get them planning how they want their papers to go. The 3 most important questions:
Who specifically is your audience? (a great exercise is to write “to” one specific person)
What specifically is your purpose? (What do you want the reader to feel, think or do?)
How do you plan to meet that purpose?
Then plan. A lot.
3. Time
However long you think writing should take, double or triple your estimate. It’s a craft. Having said that, if a student is getting burnt out, you MUST reevaluate or they will learn to loathe writing, which is terrible. We want to empower students to LOVE the art of writing.
I recommend kids take large writing blocks to savor the process, sometimes 2-4 hours. Plan in breaks and snacks and such, but eliminate electronics, open tabs, games. Basically, create the ultimate writing environment, and honor it. Dive into the process, it takes time. This is where the magic happens.
4. Fun
Meaningless writing assignments, standardized tests and busywork put out the fire. Ignite and inspire. Have fun. Be light, don’t take it too seriously. Writing is a gift, a magical tool of communication, an art, an expression. Kids love to write when they feel like authors, when they feel like their ideas matter. That’s where we can support them best.
Back to the student
I emailed to see how it was going. Here is his response:
“All is well! Got a 10/10 on my outline and apparently only 3 others out of 15 or so students did, so I’m very grateful to you for helping. Presentation also went well, and I got a stupid Roman art project done that was worth a quarter of my grade. So now I’m starting to expand my outline and I’ll probably get to writing draft on Wednesday.”
So it works. Understand that right brained learners have different needs, get them to plan thoroughly, plan large blocks of time to honor the craft, and have fun!
By Seth Perler: A parent of one of my former students forwarded this video to me today.
The student in this video is my kind of kid. As Jeff Bliss of Duncanville High is getting kicked out of class, he beautifully articulates what too many kids go through. In the video he’s talking to his teacher, expressing his frustration about how they’re being taught.
He says to his teacher that kids need to learn “face to face”, that “if you want kids to get excited you gotta make em’ excited.”
“You want a kid to change and start doing better you gotta touch his freakin’ heart. Can’t expect a kid to change if all you do is just tell ‘em.”
“You gotta take this job seriously, this is the future of this Nation. And when you come in here, like you did last time and make a statement about: “Oh this is my pay-check.” Indeed it is. But this is my countries future and my education.”
“Since I got here, I’ve done nothing but read packets, so don’t try to take credibility for teaching me jack.”
He’s right.
WATCH THE VIDEO:
The Problem with Packets
“Packets” refer to a groups of worksheets or other copies, stapled together and passed out for classwork or homework. I’ve had to bite my tongue plenty while working with teams of dedicated teachers who still insisted on overusing packets. And now, I coach many students who “hate” packets. Unfortunately, by the middle school level, students often associate this disdain with school, teachers and subject matter. It’s sad. While packets aren’t inherently “bad” there are some common problems with the way many teachers use them:
They’re usually the same for all students regardless of diverse learning needs
They often feel like boring, meaningless busywork
They’re rarely engaging
They can teach kids to resent school
They’re impersonal
They don’t “teach”
In my experience, most teachers who stay in the profession more than a couple years are very well-intentioned, caring, dedicated, hard working people. So why do so many rely on packets?
It’s what they’ve seen modeled in schools for years and few question it. Questioning school protocols and going against the grain is ironically frowned upon for people who are supposed to teach critical thinking.
They are convenient- Easy to manage and grade.
They are often an easy way to “teach to the test.” Many teachers give this sort of busywork for homework so they can better meet school “accountability” goals, not because they find true value for the learners.
Breaking out of this box is uncomfortable for teachers.
It requires unconventional and inconvenient methods of teaching and assessment that give a clearer picture of how a student is learning.
It requires not following the herd.
It requires creativity, time, energy and frankly, teachers are sapped.
It requires support from administrators to be creative, to try new things, to focus less on data and standardization and more on the complex needs of the human beings they are serving.
Alternatives to Packets
Make content engaging. As an educator, it’s my responsibility to make content engaging, fun, interesting, to empower students to find value in the content. It’s also my responsibility to make it into bite sized pieces, and bite sized is different for different students and is largely dependent on executive function-a topic teachers need to master soon. Teaching is a science AND an art. “Differentiating” instruction is one of the artistic aspects that packets don’t address.
Guide students to do engaging, interest based projects. Focus more on developing interests, passions, strengths, talents and curiosities.
Give students as much choice as possible in terms of the content they are learning, the process by which they learn it and the product they use to show their learning. Yes, when properly guided, students are actually capable of making excellent learning choices.
Give students the right amount of structure. Some need more, some less. Yes, this requires more time and effort by our overworked and underpaid teachers (and that’s another story altogether).
Rethink grades completely. What do they really “mean?” How are they used? What alternatives can be used to assess true learning?
Rethink homework. Thoroughly question how valuable a homework assignment truly is. If it’s legitimately valuable to a student, great, if not, what are we doing?
About the Teacher
It’s tempting to blame the teacher, but her inability to teach is really sad. Imagine going to college for 4 years, excited about being a teacher and helping kids. Imagine starting your career without proper support and leadership, being overworked, underpaid, undervalued. Imagine getting burned out, losing family time in exchange for grading papers and planning lessons due to inadequate planning time at work and an overwhelming workload.
It’s easy to blame the teachers, but they are often not given what they need to serve students to the best of their ability. Teachers need to be led by real leaders who help them develop their craft. If a teacher is properly led and still can’t connect with students, sure, get rid of them now. But if they are properly supported and encouraged, most of them can better serve our kids.
What do you think?
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“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” –Elmore Leonard
I’ve taught writing in various capacities to hundreds of students, from 3rd graders to graduate students. There are numerous systems designed to teach kids how to write, all claiming to be “the way.” I prefer to teach the following paradigm, as it provides a fantastically solid foundation. This is a universal approach that works with all ages, so don’t hesitate to cut, paste and modify my words into a useful reference for yourself or your students. Good authors consciously or unconsciously use this basic process for everything they write. I hope it serves you!
SPECIAL NOTE: Philosophically speaking, when teaching writing I see it as my job to facilitate a love for writing first and foremost. Everything else will come later if a student learns to love and value the art of writing. On the other hand, if a student can write “in the box” perfectly, gets high scores of standardized tests, has perfect spelling, grammar, mechanics, etc. but has not developed a love for writing, as far as I’m concerned his/her teachers have done an appalling disservice.
Audience
Carefully consider who you writing for. Take your time to thoughtfully imagine your audience and how best to communicate with them.
Purpose
What are you trying to make the reader feel, think or do? Refer back to your audience and purpose ideas throughout the writing process.
Step 1. PLAN (aka Pre-writing)
This is the most important part of the process and requires a bit of time. This is also the most underused part of the process. When people don’t plan thoughtfully, writing becomes disorganized and goes in too many directions. Use any of the following to plan: Brainstorms, think, imagine, visualize, lists, graphic organizers, outlines, webs, post its, talk it out with someone, talk ideas on an audio recorder, note cards or anything else that helps plan writing.
Step 2. DRAFT
Get it on paper in an organized manner. The focus is on expanding your “plan” ideas into sentences and paragraphs, NOT on perfection. Allow messy crossouts, eraser marks, arrows, markups, etc. all over the draft.
Step 3. REVISE
Polish your ideas, check that your purpose is being met. Authors revise many, many times.
Aka “final draft.” Get it as perfect as possible. Neat, organized, ready for a reader to read. Make sure the paper fulfills your purpose for your audience. Add a cover page.
I don’t usually do this, but I love what this guy is doing, so I’m gonna tell you about it!
If you’re a parent or teacher, you should sign up for Jesse’s blog.
I’ve been following Jesse for a long time. He posts blogs every once in a while when he has a strong opinion about a current event in education. I love his passion and wanted to share his work with you so you can learn from him!
I do not know Jesse and he does not know I’m posting this on my blog. I’m doing this purely because I appreciate the way he contributes to helping our kids.
